Is AJ Styles Winning at WWE Payback a Real Possibility?

AJ Styles has had a surprising rise towards being in the main event for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. But how realistic are the chances of him winning?

It is somewhat interesting to see how AJ Styles has climbed up to the main event picture only about three months after making his WWE debut at the Royal Rumble in January. What’s more interesting is the line that WWE World Heavyweight Champion Roman Reigns where he recognizes Styles as a champion outside of WWE.

The storyline will likely continue to be interesting with the involvement of the Bullet Club’s Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson – who teamed with Styles at New Japan Pro Wrestling. Will the WWE put Reigns over since he’s been planned to be their top guy for the long-run? Or are we seeing a new dominant stable being formed with Styles as a heel champion?

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There are going to be a lot of interesting things happening over the next few weeks and even if Styles is a heel, a large portion of wrestling fans are going to cheer him if he does claim the WWE World Heavyweight Champion. However, one has to question how legitimate of a chance is there of the powers that be in WWE to put their top title on the Phenomenal One, AJ Styles.

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Let’s consider that they are recognizing that Styles has had a lot of success in other companies – although they aren’t making a reference to TNA. They don’t really need to since he’s won in Japan and they’ve also been known to talk about Ring of Honor for other talents like Daniel Bryan and C.M. Punk.

Remember when Sting, a man who has won multiple world championships outside of the WWE, came to the company. Despite a push to be involved with Triple H and WrestleMania and faced Seth Rollins for the world championship, he went winless in his run with WWE. Styles is a unique case since he still seems to have plenty in the tank at the age of 38. It could be different, but the WWE hasn’t really put over guys who weren’t really homegrown talents and had a big following already before making their WWE television debuts.

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Reigns is someone the company did develop over the years and it would be hard to imagine that the WWE would have the creative team invest so much effort into building him up to be their new top superstar just to hand it over to someone like Styles less than a month later. There have been news reports stating that there might be support from WWE’s top officials in having Styles be joining that upper-tier on the match card.

While Styles winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship would feel like a fresh change of pace for the WWE Universe, there really isn’t a precedent for having someone like Styles become the champion in less than six months. At least guys like Bryan, Punk and Rollins – all who had cult followings before WWE – put in the time to grow and be built up to that level of upper-card status.

Then again, did we ever expect the WWE would sign talents like Styles in the first place?

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